Domain Parking

Purchasing a domain and then parking it with a parking service is one of the cheaper and easier options when it comes to monetizing your domain name. But, as you study the way a parked domain makes its money, you’ll see that it carries a higher initial cost and significantly higher risk because the value of the domain can sometimes depreciate over time.

How It Works, In a Nutshell –

Just to clarify, the term ‘domain parking’ can be taken in several different ways.

To a website developer, domain parking is when you have several different domain names and you park them all on one website. For example, you have the .info and .net versions of yoursite.com and you park them both on yoursite.com. So when anyone types in yoursite.net, they’re taken to yoursite.com.

The other definition of ‘domain parking’, the one this guide is concerned with, is when you point your domain to a ‘parking service’ via its nameservers. So, when you configure the domain with your Registrar, you give it the nameservers of the corresponding parking service that you’ve signed up with. That parking service then sets up a number of PPC ads on the parked website and you earn a percentage for each ad click-through that your parked domain generates.

As with affiliate website, your means of making money relies on people landing on your site and clicking on the available links. So, if a domain name gets absolutely no traffic, the site will gain nothing from being parked. Some parking companies even ban domain names that receive zero traffic.

Finding a Good Domain Name to Park

As we mentioned before, a domain needs a steady line of traffic in order to make money through a parking service. But a new domain name isn’t going to build any kind of search engine traffic, especially once it’s been parked. The only way to build search engine traffic is by building a website, which is described above in the affiliate website section. So how does a parked domain get traffic? There are actually several ways:

1. The name was once a developed website that search engines still remember and point to. This would likely be short lived though. You’d have lots of traffic when you first buy it and then suddenly it would stop when the search engines realize it’s no longer an active site. This type of domain is generally very expensive, unless you can pick up a dropped domain before someone else gets it.
2. The site has a popular name that people are used to typing into the browser (commonly called a type-in). This can be also short lived. Once people see that their ‘old familiar site’ is gone, they’ll likely stop typing it in, and you’ll get less traffic. As with domains that get search engine traffic, the more of this kind of traffic a site receives, the more the domain name will cost.
3. People type-in the name of a product in their browser and add a .com, hoping they’ll come to a site that’s useful to them. This kind of traffic will probably never decrease, but such domain names are expensive and there’s usually more money in their resale value. The reason people park such domains is to give them a ‘resting place’ and gain residual income until they’ve found a buyer. Some of the more popular domain names, like computers.com, sell for millions of dollars. These are the headline winners though, and not easy to obtain.
4. People type-in two or more words, add a .com to the end, and hope for the right site. The likelihood of this happening is slim, but it does happen occasionally . Such domains are much less expensive and usually have more value to affiliate website builders. But, they’re also worth money to domain buyers and resellers. If parking the domain builds just enough income to pay for the renewal, it’s worth holding onto while you wait for the right buyer.
5. People try to type-in a popular website’s name in their browser, but make a typo. This is commonly known as ‘typo-squatting’ and will be discussed later. For now, suffice it to say that there are ongoing lawsuits over the practice. Until you have more experience, use caution with this type of domain name.

Of the five types of parked domains listed above, number four is probably the easiest and cheapest option for beginners. While headline-worthy domains (number three above) would obviously yield much more money, such domain names very rarely become available and are hotly contended when they do. Of course, if you have the opportunity to snatch one up if it is dropped or buy one from the current owner for a decent price, then by all means do so. This does happen from time to time, but it usually takes a lot of research, patience, and work.

To find the best domain names for a parked site, you’ll benefit from using several different tools.

One online tool you can use to research keywords is . Like many keyword tools, you simply type in a keyword it suggests various relevant key phrases that are often used in Google searches. It also provides an approximate view of how often those phrases are searched for, how many competing sites exist, and how many existing advertisers there are for that phrase.

A short, common phrase can work well as a domain name and draw type-in traffic while it’s parked. But as with PPC websites, don’t give in to the temptation to click on your own site’s ads. Doing so will only get you banned from your parking service.